Folk Music

Last night we went to the 32nd Ann Arbor Folk Festival. It had a pretty amazing lineup of up and coming artists from around the country. If you like country, folk, or blue grass we thought we would share some of our new favorites. The group that stole the show was the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They are a self described African-American String band that includes everything from the banjo to a jug. They played (and danced) to one of our favorites, The Salty Dog Rag. But they stole the night when they closed their set with a folk version of Hit Em Up Style. You can can't down load it on iTunes yet but you can hear it here on YouTube. The other part of the night that was pretty great was when Old Crow Medicine show played. One of the players from Carolina Chocolate Drops came out and played the bones with them and I think everyone was in the rafters with excitment. There were many more good artists but those two should keep you occupied for a while. Enjoy!

Obama!

woohoo! What an exciting day!
First we voted, and that was a pretty big day...

Now it's the REALLY big day!

Another great day

The temperatures finally rose above 0 today to a balmy 20 degrees. So we decided to go out enjoy the snow. It was sunny and perfect skiing conditions. We spent the morning cross country skiing and now it is back to work and giving our tired legs a break.

Packaging

Packaging makes up about 30% of consumer waste. Over the past month I think it has been accounting for 75% of our waste though. With the holidays there are all those boxes and wrapping paper, the shipping boxes, the peanuts, plastic wrap, and who knows what else. The other day we received in the mail a replacement bulb for our happy lamp because the first one arrived broken. Take a look at the amount of packaging that it took to get this one bulb to us. What we wanted (the bulb) is the thing on the far right and the rest of the stuff is what it took to get there.

But not all packaging is created equal. This product came from Gaiam an environmental conscious store. So the box is reused, the peanuts are made from vegetables and can be composted or disolved, and they have thought through everything else too. Check out the little piece of paper they give you to explain it all (yes I know that creates more waste but education is some times worth the extra waste). Click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't read it.

We decided to dissolve our peanuts instead of feeding them to our worms (they already have too much food). It was pretty cool. Check out the before and after.

Before
After (which went down the drain)There really are some cool ways to recycle out there that does make a difference. If you want to know more about where all this stuff comes from and goes check out the Story of Stuff at http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I'm about to go outside

I'm sitting here, and it's 30 minutes before class, and I'm debating with myself what to wear. I mean really, how much clothing can I put on? It's minus 8 degrees outside. All of the schools in southeast Michigan are closed for the day. But I've got a 2 hour lab to go to.


So Moshi and I are just sitting here, staring out the window. I'm thinking about how cold it is out there, but I think Moshi is just watching for birds at the bird feeder.

Holidays

Today it is back to the real world. Or wonderful month long vacation has come to and end and classes start again. We had a great break. We drove Moshi east to NYC to see my parents. Bebeth and Mark were there and we spent x-mas, and ate so much good food. We then put the poor cat back in the car and went to DC to see Arthur's family. I even learned how to play paddle tennis. I am not very good at it though. We ate more good food, drink more wine, and saw the whole family. It was back in the car to Starlight for a relaxing five days behind the fire reading, playing games, and tromping through the snow for hikes. After a 10 hour drive we all made it back to Michigan ready for a new term.

To see photos from our vacation check out click here: Holidays 2008

Winter is here!

Michigan decided it was time to live up to it's reputation... it snowed!!! That meant it was time to go cross country skiing. Our skis had been in the bag way too long, we had been in side way too much, and we were itching to ski. So we got up this morning and drove 30 mintues on very snowy roads to a local park that grooms and went skiing for two hours. It was beautiful but man do my legs hurt now.

Us on the bank of the Huron River

Arthur getting cross country skiing confused with downhill skiing